Abstract
Abstract
Due to the multifaceted environmental problems being encountered globally, the need to respect the environment has started gaining momentum. Researchers have identified that the spiritual component in an individual's relationship with nature has not been measured. The concept of ecospirituality was defined using extant literature, and items were generated to measure ecospirituality. To ascertain the measurement scale, a survey was conducted among 527 employees working in various organizations. The data was split into two samples for conducting exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in five dimensions of ecospirituality, namely, dwelling, caring, revering, experiencing, and relating. Confirmatory factor analysis was done using structural equation modeling to assess the reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. Four models were developed and compared using model fit indices. A second study with 321 respondents was used to validate the ecospirituality scale by comparing it with three other related scales, namely, the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS), the Environmental Attitude Inventory (EAI), and the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES). The ecospirituality instrument developed in this paper would aid researchers in measuring ecospirituality and facilitate in testing causal relationships. This would contribute to the existing environmental psychology literature.
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